SAN ANTONIO (ABP) — Since its beginning, missions, evangelism, benevolence and education have remained central to the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas.
In 1938, Mexican Baptists in Texas gathered at a campground in Devine to build a Spanish-speaking church.
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The group — also known as the Convencion, Spanish for "convention" — will celebrate its 100th anniversary during its annual meeting June 27-29 at Trinity Baptist
Church in San Antonio. The group will embrace the theme
“Yesterday, Today and Forever,” looking at how its churches have
shared the hope of Christ for a century and how they will continue to do
so in the future.
“It’s a historical moment for our Convencion, celebrating our past and
recognizing people who brought us to this moment, celebrating today and
celebrating what God will do tomorrow,” said Victor Rodriguez, pastor of
South
San Filadelfia Baptist Church in San Antonio and president of the
Convencion.
Rolando Rodriguez, director of Texas Baptists’ office of Hispanic
ministries, hopes the Hispanic convention’s annual meeting is a time
where believers can reflect upon their past and build upon that work to
achieve even greater tasks.
“This celebration is about commitment,” he said. “I hope that we
can send a message of hope, a message that says: ‘We are here. We have
presence. And we mean business when it comes to sharing the gospel.’
Let’s celebrate the past, but let’s not lose focus on our main mission,
and that is to reach Texas for Christ.”
Leaders expect at least 3,000 people to attend the fiesta, which
Victor Rodriguez said will encourage Hispanic Baptists to focus on the
roots of the convention — missions, evangelism and discipleship
efforts. Baptists will gather from across the state to discuss ways
Hispanic Baptists have shared the gospel in the past and ways they can
effectively do so in the future.
Two dozen churches sent 36 messengers to the first meeting of what then was called the Convencion Bautista Mexicana de Texas on May 25, 1910, in San Antonio. In his 1982 book, A History of Mexican Baptists in Texas, Josue Grijalva noted the first meeting of Convencion was characterized by reports and offerings for missions, passionate appeals to advance the gospel, emphasis on the need to care for orphan children and concern about providing educational institutions that could prepare leaders for Christian service.
From its earliest days, missions and evangelism have been central emphases of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas.
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In a report to the El Paso Baptist Association in 1910, Convencion president C.D. Daniel said: “There are approximately 400,000 Mexicans [in Texas] now, and they are rapidly increasing, and will continue to do so until conditions more favorable to the laborers prevail in Mexico.”
The newly formed Convencion provided a mechanism for Hispanic Baptists in Texas to work cooperatively in evangelizing and ministering to that growing mission field.
Concern for orphaned and at-risk children has characterized the Convencion since its beginning in 1910.
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It also offered a place where Hispanic Texas Baptists could meet needs — particularly the needs of vulnerable children. In the early 20th century, some Hispanic Texas Baptists supported missionary Paul C. Bell’s Bible institute in Bastrop, Texas — a refuge where orphaned children could live, study and work. In the 1940s, the Mexican Baptist Orphans’ Home was established in San Antonio, an entity that has grown to become Baptist Child & Family Services.
During that same decade, the educational concerns of Hispanics in Texas found two institutional expressions — Valley Baptist Academy and the Mexican Baptist Bible Institute. The institute later became Hispanic Baptist Theological Seminary and finally Baptist University of the Américas.
Today, Hispanics in Texas number 9.8 million, and more than 1,000 predominantly Hispanic congregations are affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas — comprising 19 percent of the BGCT's total congregations.
“The mission field is now all around us,” said Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas President Victor Rodriguez, pastor of South San Filadelfia Baptist Church in San Antonio. “Many of our neighborhoods continue to change. If churches throughout our state experience changes in their communities, new Hispanic churches must continue to be a priority. This is a challenge that all Baptists must take very seriously.”
In addition to meeting the needs of Spanish-speaking first-generation immigrants and their children, Hispanic Texas Baptists also must reach out to third- and fourth-generation Hispanics for whom English is the primary language but who still value their cultural heritage, he noted.
“Growing up in a Spanish-speaking church, I would tell the pastor of my church — my father — that we needed an all-English-speaking worship service. In 1980, no one could see Hispanics worshiping in an English-speaking church,” Rodriguez said. “Today, I pastor a church where we have one Spanish service and one English service.”
In addition to reaching the growing Hispanic population within Texas, Hispanic Baptists in the state also have the potential to make a worldwide mission impact, said Albert Reyes, president of the Dallas-based Baptist social-services agency Buckner International and former president of Baptist University of the Americas.
Latin America — along with Africa and Asia — rapidly is becoming a center of global Christianity, he notes, quoting missiologist Phillip Jenkins. That places Hispanic Texas Baptists in a strategic position, Reyes observed.
But he also points out the key role Hispanics can play in evangelizing the predominantly Muslim Arab world.
“Hispanics in Texas are connected to the Arab world through histories that trace through Mexico, Spain and North Africa. There are approximately 21,000 Spanish words with Arabic roots,” Reyes has written.
“Since Hispanics share a common language, culture and history with the Arab world, a natural connection for sharing the gospel is in place.”
With Reyes at the helm of Buckner International, a natural connection also is in place for Hispanic Texas Baptists to express their historic concern for orphaned and at-risk children through ministry, mentoring and missions opportunities.
Hispanic Baptists in Texas continue their emphasis on educational development through involvement in the Hispanic Education Initiative — including funding scholarships for deserving students — and their support for BUA in San Antonio and its satellite Baptist Bible Institutes.
“Every time we have a commencement exercise, it is a celebration of accomplishment in individual families and in the Hispanic community,” BUA President René Maciel said. “In many of these families, these students are the first to graduate. And in the community, it’s a cause for celebration because they have accomplished what so few have. It’s exciting to be part of something like that.”
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Ken Camp is managing editor of the Texas Baptist Standard. John Hall of Texas Baptist communications contributed to this story.
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